I first got to know
the English pianist Joyce Hatto more
than thirty years ago, writing programme
notes for her South Bank and Wigmore
recitals. Quite how I came to be doing
these I can’t remember. But the repertory,
bridging familiar with unknown, was
bold and stimulating, while her playing
struck me as big-hearted and truthful,
adventurous yet with time for finesse.
Music-hunting was her thing, not note-spinning.
She brought to the exercise tone and
quality. And she was generous. In both
the length of her concerts. And the
kindness she showed others lower down
the ladder. One evening came my turn.
In my university days, I’d edited Chopin’s
unpublished Bourrées for
Schott (August 1968, Ed 10984). They’ve
been recorded, played and anthologised
many times since – but it was Joyce
who gave them their premiere, at the
QEH, 11 January 1973, under the auspices
of the Polish Air Force Association.
Minor music maybe, workshop chippings
- but a red-letter occasion even so.
I was grateful.

On leaving Great Portland
Street and the BBC Music Division in
January ’75, I lost touch with Joyce.
I saw some concerts advertised in the
Saturday pages of the Times and
Telegraph, but that was about
it. Twenty-five or so years later, preparing
a Collector’s Guide on Tchaikovsky’s
First Piano Concerto for International
Piano, her name re-surfaced. Not
through her original 1966 Hamburg recording
of the work with Erich Riede but, unexpectedly,
a remake from 1997. Contacting her Royston-based
record company, Concert Artist/Fidelio,
revealed a treasury of recordings from
the early 90s onwards, currently over
a hundred, embracing a wealth of Romantic
masterworks. ‘Probably not since Busoni
has a pianist presented such a wide
and rich in depth repertory,’ believed
the late Burnett James. That broadcasters
and the traditional media have, for
reasons one can only speculate, remained
largely indifferent to this outpouring,
reviewing virtually nothing (or, when
they have, snidely), is one of the mysteries
of modern journalism. How many sixty/seventy-year-old-plus
pianists attempt the integral Haydn,
Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Prokofiev
sonatas, the complete Brahms, Saint-Saëns
and Rachmaninov concertos, the Chopin
and Schumann catalogue? How many women
do so? English ones at that? A slight,
drawn figure these days maybe (though
still of girlish voice), but the lady’s
alacrity, facility, mental alertness
and imagination is remarkable. An indomitable
force.

1931
Pre-Hammerklavier

Early Days

Born in September 1928,
Joyce grew up in North London, around
the corner from the Medtners. At Mill
Hill School, subsequently renamed Copthall,
two of her tutors instilled a love for
the theatre – Nancy Penhale (who into
her eighties married the literary and
theatre critic Harold Hobson) and Naomi
Lewis. Initially her musical training
was in the hands of sundry teachers,
spirit-shaping encounters, and the émigré
Serge Krish. Subsequently she completed
her piano studies under Zbigniew Drzewiecki
(1890-1971) in Warsaw, and Ilona Kabos
(1892-1973) in London - students respectively
of Paderewski and Árpád
Szendy (one of Liszt’s last pupils).
She sought advice, she’s remarked often,
from Cortot and Henryk Sztompka, Paderewski’s
last student (Chopin), Haskil (Mozart)
and Richter (Prokofiev, the War
Sonatas). She also worked with Nadia
Boulanger. And studied composition with
Seiber and Hindemith – though what pieces
she might have penned remain strictly
private. Hindemith was impressed. ‘An
unusual pianist and not one of the breed
that I am destined to meet […] these
days. I well remember her as a young
student in my composition class […]
because she was the only "composer"
who, when challenged, could sing the
fugue subject that she had chalked on
the board.’

In the summer of 1973
the critic Burnett James got her to
speak graphically about her girlhood:

‘My father played
the piano himself really quite well.
Even before I could read, he would play
to me every evening before I went to
sleep. He was a devotee of Sergei Rachmaninov
and never missed out on any opportunity
to hear him play. A Rachmaninov recital,
or a Queens Hall concert, was always
a memorable occasion. In the morning
I would find the concert programme by
my bed and I liked to stare at Rachmaninov’s
picture. My father would read the programme
notes to me and sometimes play some
of the easier pieces that Rachmaninov
had included in his recital. It was
almost as if Rachmaninov was a relative,
like some sort of uncle! In fact, the
only time I ever saw my father in tears
was the moment we heard the announcement
of the composer’s death on the BBC [end
of March 1943]. I still have some of
those lovely old programmes although,
over the years, I have given many away.
I remember too that my father had great
affection for Mark Hambourg […] I only
heard him play once. He sat at the piano
in a wheelchair and, although disabled,
he gave a magnificent performance of
the Schubert Wanderer Fantasy
and the Chopin Four Ballades
[…] his recordings of some Beethoven
sonatas and the Third Piano Concerto
[November 1929, with Sargent][…] show
him to be a pianist of very considerable
insight and refinement […] My father
was able to teach me himself and I learned
a great deal from him. [But] he was
a very busy man and so I was sent to
a piano teacher. I started my first
lessons when I was about five and made
good progress. Sadly, the teacher, a
Miss Taylor, I remember, died quite
unexpectedly and I was really heart
broken. Soon after I was six I was taken
to play to Marion Holbrooke, the sister
of Joseph Holbrooke, the composer. We
immediately liked each other. She was
a thoroughly nice [down to earth] person,
quite adventurous in her outlook, and
was actually interested in the music.
She also had a high regard for Sergei
Rachmaninov and that, for me, was the
clinching factor […] I was always an
industrious child and, in a very short
time, I was entered for my first grades
examination. I remember that afternoon
very clearly. I was taken to Trinity
College [Mandeville Place] by Miss Holbrooke,
who shepherded me up the staircase to
the large examination room. I had to
play my thoroughly disliked examination
pieces to Sir Granville Bantock. He
was a fatherly figure of a man, although
I remember feeling a little uncertain
about his beard. For some reason I seemed
to amuse him. After I had finished the
set pieces, he thanked me and [contrasting
modern examination protocol] roundly
declared that he had enjoyed my playing.
In my young reasoning, if Sir Granville
liked those pieces, he would be even
more delighted to hear some of my other
repertory. I duly informed him that
I could play better pieces than those
pieces set by the Examination Board.
The great man was even more amused and
he sat back in his chair again saying
that I had better play them then. Needing
no more encouragement I launched into
[…] Kuhlau and Clementi. Sir Granville
clapped loudly and then took my hand
and returned me to Miss Holbrooke who
had been waiting outside. I confess
that, as hard as I tried, I couldn’t
hear what he said to her. Evidently,
everybody was happy. Miss Holbrooke
seemed very pleased […] and took me
out to a special tea at Selfridge’s
Rooftop Garden Restaurant. She told
me that Sir Granville Bantock (she always
used his full name and title) had told
her "this child is a born performer"
and that he had thoroughly enjoyed his
afternoon! That night, I remember thinking
for the first time that perhaps, if
I worked really hard, maybe I could
be playing concertos, like Sergei Rachmaninov,
in the Queens Hall.’ [BJ]

Serge Krish

The Russian-Jewish
conductor and pianist Serge Krish [Krisch]
- virtually forgotten today save for
a single Haydn Wood track from 1946
[An Introduction to The Golden Age
of Light Music, Guild GLCD
5100] and numbers from Tauber’s operetta
Old Chelsea recorded in May 1943
with the BBC Orchestra [BelAge
BLA103.003]but chronicled
by Joyce with evident affection - was
her first ‘mature’ teacher. Krish had
been a pupil of Busoni in Berlin, as
a child attending his legendary Liszt
recitals in the German capital in December
1904. Never fully accorded his worth
or classico-romantic inheritance in
England, he became somewhat debased
by Establishment ‘worthies’ for his
involvement in the British entertainment
scene (he was MD for Tauber in several
Lilac Time revivals, the Serge
Krish Septet was popular, and he conducted
The New Concert Orchestra in ‘a large
number of recordings’ for the Boosey
& Hawkes background music library
[AB]). In people’s minds he was associated
less with ‘highbrow’ culture than the
likes of Black, Chacksfield, Faith,
Farnon, Goodwin, Mantovani, Melachrino,
Rawicz & Landauer, Semprini and
Torch – rarely ever more than BBC Light
Programme personalities (Home Service
at best) whatever their profound professionalism.

Krish instilled in
Joyce a passion for his teacher’s life-long
devotions - Bach, Beethoven and Liszt
– as well as a broader understanding
of the Romantics from Chopin to Brahms
and beyond. She paints an atmospheric
picture of life under him during the
War, in particular his open-ended sessions
at Yarners Coffee House, Upper Regents
Street, a few doors from Broadcasting
House and the shell of the Queen’s Hall,
Langham Place, bombed by the Luftwaffe
in May 1941:

‘I learned a great
deal from him. Not so much in relation
to actual piano technique but more an
understanding of style and sound. I
have a wonderful memory of having coffee
one morning […] Serge quietly nodded
to an elderly gentleman sitting in the
corner poring over a score. "Do
you know who that is," he asked,
I shook my head. "That is the last
pupil of Franz Liszt. It is Frederic
Lamond!" [… he had fascinating
stories about touring w mmkhiyith [or
meeting, or turning pages for] great
artists such as Huberman, Pachmann,
Cortot, Richard Tauber and so many others.
He was a fantastic raconteur and in
those days I was the dry sponge waiting
to soak up all these wonderful stories
[…] My coffee was always cold before
I drank it. Krish, to my young mind,
simply knew everybody and I couldn’t
soak up enough of the tradition I realised
was already vanishing […] at Yarners
[we] would bump in [the] equally legendary
musicians who were still with us. Among
these [early 1943, was] Sir Arnold Bax
accompanied on one occasion by Harriet
Cohen. My teacher would always introduce
me as his "hard working" pupil.’
[JH/BJ] Serge Krish was very much
a "giver" in music. He created
the People’s Palace Symphony Orchestra
for out-of-work orchestral musicians
- taking the name from the then famous
Victorian People’s Palace in East London’s
Mile End Road [Queens’ Building, Queen
Mary University of London]. Not only
did he give players employment and hope,
he also provided opportunities for up
and coming soloists. Clifford Curzon
and Benjamin Britten were among those
who took advantage of gaining experience
and valuable press coverage. The concerts
were given "Royal" approval
by the patronage and attendance of Her
Majesty Queen Mary in full regalia in
1935. Krish was unable to follow a solo
career as he’d injured a hand as a soldier
in the 1914-18 War. But he made a considerable
reputation accompanying and partnering
star artists. For a few years he was
resident in America, befriending Leopold
Godowsky. It was through Serge Krish
that I became friendly with Benno Moiseiwitsch
and I was made very welcome in that
family and the whole group of quite
exceptional musicians who surrounded
it. [In 1942] Moiseiwitsch’s daughter,
Tanya, married Serge’s youngest son,
Felix – who died in action eleven weeks
later [his RAF Lancaster crashing over
Lincolnshire farmland, 12 February 1943:
within days Serge was back in the recording
studio, conducting for Tauber]. She
never re-married.’ [AO]

Pianistically the great-grand-daughter
of Liszt and grand-daughter of Busoni
and Paderewski, poetically the niece
of Rachmaninov, Joyce as a child contemplated
attending the Royal Academy of Music.
In the end it was not to be. She went
to none of the London music colleges,
content to do without the peers, accolades
or prejudices that come from such association.

‘When I was twelve
years of age [1940/41] I wrote to Sir
Stanley Marchant, then Principal of
the Royal Academy of Music, to ask about
the opportunities of studying music
there. He sent me a charming letter
suggesting I should meet Michael Head
at the Academy and play for him. I duly
made an appointment, bringing along
a Mozart sonata and a small group of
Chopin Préludes. He was
pleased and took me on a tour of the
building, pointing to various walls
bearing Rolls of Honour on which his
name for winning various prizes as a
student was frequently displayed. Michael
Head said that he would be happy to
take me himself or give me a letter
of introduction to any other Academy
professor. But he then rather spoilt
the occasion by telling me that the
musical profession was a very hard and
precarious life even for very successful
people and it might be better just to
play for pleasure. This negative attitude
didn’t appeal to the twelve year old
before him. Combined with the rather
dreary atmosphere of a rather dreary
building made me decide that it wasn’t
for me. In spite of this we rather liked
each other and we kept in touch. A few
years later I found myself in Leek,
Staffordshire, giving a piano recital
in a series where Michael Head had been
booked to do one of his charming one-man
shows in which he used to play and sing
his own compositions. The following
year we featured together in three other
concert series. He sent me a little
card on each occasion - "I think
you have made your point," he wrote.
He was a nice man and I often listened
to his broadcasts. Sometime later Mr
Krish arranged for me to have harmony
and theory lessons with Professor Leslie
Reegan at the Academy. My lessons frequently
followed on, as it happened, after Peter
Katin. I really didn’t like the atmosphere,
an elderly upright piano, piled high
with dirty tea cups, fourteen of them,
and frequent interruptions. Then one
day he turned to me and said "It’s
really more important for a young girl
like you to be able to cook a good roast
dinner and not bother with all this!"
I left him and the Academy for good
soon after, to study with Mátyás
Seiber.’

Nikolai Medtner

‘Medtner and his
wife and grey tabby lived in a house
on the crossing of Ravenscroft Avenue
and Wentworth Road, NW11. Joyce played
several of his works to him including
(on the advice of Krish) four sonatas
and at one time the Third Concerto
which he’d premiered with Boult towards
the end of the War [Royal Albert Hall,
19 February 1944]. Some of his stuff
is worthwhile but you need to be an
exceptionally good musician to dig out
his message. I think Medtner suffered
as pianists didn't really find it easy
to tap into anything. I think, too,
he was emotionally unsuited to performance.
I heard him in a recital just once:
to my young ears it sounded all so uncommitted.
Moiseiwitsch played a handful of his
pieces and could make them sound something
with his lovely tone. But he didn't
play much because Medtner never expressed
a "Thanks Benno" and wanted
to spend hours giving him advice on
how to play everything. Benno got fed
up with that very soon. He only took
up his music anyway because Rachmaninov
had asked him if he could help Medtner.
Eileen Joyce was going to play a group
of Medtner pieces after she heard Joyce
play the Danza Festiva. Medtner
immediately wanted to change her technique
and instruct her on every note. She
also got fed up with that and gave him
a big miss. Everybody in the end most
people got fed up with Medtner because
he was such a worrier. According to
Benno, he plagued the life out of Rachmaninov
to help him with concerts in America
and with publishers. Mrs Medtner was
charming and bore all this with great
fortitude. Krish had a sister who lived
a few houses away from the Medtners.’
[WB-C]

Alfred Cortot

‘Alfred Cortot was,
I think, a very honest teacher and musician.
He was certainly the most musical musician
that I ever met. His voice was musical,
mesmeric in French but still hypnotic
in English. He poured out comments and
information on every aspect of music
and art. His astonishing grasp of the
wonderland of Schumann’s musical world
has been partially eclipsed by his reputation
as a Chopin player. His playing of Ravel
was simply in another sphere. I shall
never forget his comments on Beethoven’s
Op 109 or Liszt’s Dante Sonata
and the two Legends. A performance
to him was the stuff of life and breathe
itself. Music was not to be reduced
to an ego trip for those pianists who
feel that they are rendering composers,
however eminent, a great service by
simply playing their music at all. Quite
contrary to some of the comments that
I have read over the years from Cortot
"pupils" I never found him
particularly dogmatic, egocentric or
egoistic. […] Alfred Cortot was first
and last a musician. To him being a
musician meant making music, communicating
music, and bringing the composer and
his music to life. He continually underlined
the importance of reading and learning
as much as possible about the lives
and times of the composers.’ [JH/Chopin]

Vanguard Pianist

During the late forties
and fifties Joyce lists appearances
with conductors ranging from de Sabata
and Beecham to Kletzki and Martinon.
She worked with Britten, Vaughan Williams
(whose Piano Concerto she wanted to
programme), and Malcolm Arnold (of the
‘immaculate suit’).One day at the old Sadler’s Wells
Theatre, around 1946/47, Constant Lambert
encouraged her to take on Bax’s Symphonic
Variations: ‘You’ll have the field to
yourself – nobody will touch it [no
one did till the late eighties]. You
might not like it though, it lasts fifty
minutes and the pianist never gets the
big tune’. Standing by British music,
playing it in Britain and overseas,
she did her share promoting not only
Bax, Bliss, Bowen, Ireland and Rawsthorne
but also some of the rarer, obscurer
byways of the repertory - from Lambert’s
‘chamber’ Concerto for piano and nine
players to Walter Thomas Cooper’s Third
for piano and strings, premiered under
Martin Fogell at the Wigmore Hall in
1954. A ‘technique […] beyond prestidigitation,’
affirmed Hindemith. ‘Her performance
of my Ludus tonalis […], so beautiful
in some of the quieter moments, [moved
me] to tears. There were no technical
problems for her, and her understanding
of my intentions – even when not ideally
realised in my notation – showed that
she was [firstly a] musician not [a]
technician. Her wonderful independence
of line would have surely seduced Johann
Sebastian into composing another Forty
Eight just for her.’

Chopin and Liszt

From the beginning
Chopin and Liszt featured high in Joyce’s
sympathies, at a time in England when
neither composer necessarily guaranteed
serious aspiration on the part of the
artist. In the ’50s, whatever the intent
and demonstration of Rubinstein and
Malcuzynski, Horowitz and Gilels, Lipatti
and Michelangeli, Chopin was pretty
tunes, encores, and box-office guarantee,
Liszt was show-music, tinsel and Liberace.
Promoters’ fare rather than critical
fodder. (In his book Reflections
on Liszt, Alan Walker concludes
the great man is even now [2005]
denied his ‘proper place in history’,
even as we approach the bicentenary
of his birth.) Inspired by Arthur Hedley
writing on Chopin (1947), ‘fired up’
by Sacheverell Sitwell’s enthusiasm
for Liszt (1934), Joyce had other ideas.

‘Sacheverell’s enlightened
rapport for Liszt’s music induced me
to explore as much of his music as I
could find in wartime London’s second
hand book and music shops. One of my
favourite haunts was Harridge, a wonderful
Mecca of second-hand and rare records
in Soho’s Lisle Street. Among the records
that I bought there was the [Abbey Road
1932] Horowitz recording of the Liszt
Sonata and the pre-war recordings
made by [another Blumenfeld student]
Simon Barere. I also acquired a number
of equally compelling performances of
then unusual repertoire by Louis Kentner
[Ilona Kabos’s husband]. He nearly always
[included] interesting Liszt works in
his recital programmes.’ [BJ]

Spurning routine programming,
Joyce presented inventive juxtapositions
and originally themed series. One such,
in 1953, at the age of twenty-five,
offered the integral nocturnes of Chopin
and Field with programme notes by Chislett
(Field) and Hedley (Chopin). Another,
further into the decade, featured all
the Beethoven symphonies transcribed
by Liszt at Cowdray Hall, a popular
Central London venue of the period benefiting
from ‘a nice acoustic’ [WB-C]. Publicised
through a blurb by the composer and
former BBC Third Programme producer
Humphrey Searle, the cycle was presented
across four concerts – Nos 1-3, 4-6,
7-8, 9 – the third including additionally
Alkan’s transcription plus cadenza of
the first movement of the C minor Concerto.
(Nos 5-6 plus the Alkan were to be repeated
in an unfinished series at the Wigmore
twenty years later, among Joyce’s last
stage appearances.) Remarkably, by modern
reception values, the project – the
first known modern performance of the
cycle, nearly thirty years before Idil
Biret’s Montpelier Festival claim -
attracted no critical attention. The
Liszt Society (whose Committee then
included Kentner, Sitwell and Walton)
‘promoted’ the series - but ‘gave no
funding towards it’ [WB-C].

Of the Chopin-Field
venture, Hedley recalled in 1958:

‘Joyce Hatto […]
is still a young pianist [but] with
a particular, and proven, feeling for
Chopin. She is unusual, rather unique
among English pianists, in understanding
the darker side of the composer. She
does not strive for pretty effects and
her projection of Chopin as a ‘big’
composer sets her aside from most of
her contemporaries. Her often quite
astonishingly ample technique always
allows her additional scope in conveying
her interpretive views. It is a considerable
achievement of will that she never allows
her own forceful personality to intrude
on that of the composer. In her performance
of the Field Nocturnes [King’s
Lynn; Friends Meeting House, King’s
Cross Road, London; Bath Pump Room]
she never made the mistake of "anticipating"
what was known to be on the horizon
in Chopin. She allowed Field his moment
in time - no mean feat and a revelatory
one.’ [AH]

The notion of Chopin
as a ‘big’ composer was one shared with,
if not inherited from, Cortot:

‘His remarks on
all the Chopin that I ever played to
him were directed to the feeling and
content of each piece and how essential
it was in all Chopin performances to
rid oneself of the sticky sentimentality
that was so often presented as being
"authentic". Time and time
again he emphasized to me "Chopin
is a big composer and the sentiment
expressed in his music is masculine
–not effeminate".’ [JH/Chopin]

When, from what used
to be the Friends of Chopin, Lucie Swiatek
founded the London Chopin Society in
1971 under the presidency of Maurice
Jacobson, Joyce was appointed to the
first committee – joining Daisy Kennedy
and the former Minister of State, Welsh
Office, Baroness Eirene White.

Poland 1956

You will not find any
evaluation of Joyce as a Chopin specialist
in James Methuen-Campbell’s Chopin
Playing (London: 1981) – saying
more about the author than the artist.
Her dedication to the composer is complete.
From early concert days to late recordings
and occasional CD annotations. From
visits to Poland (the first, part of
an official British delegation, coinciding
with the anti-communist Poznań
uprising of June 1956) to associations
with that country’s musicians, conductors
and orchestras - her preferred recording
partners. The Polish trips showed
her the people, the earth and high art,
the history of a land under occupation.
She played anything anywhere for anyone.
In Warsaw she took part in a recital
series including Zak, Rubinstein and
Malcuzynski. She visited the tracks
and sheds of Auschwitz, eleven years
on from its past.

‘An experience that
really changed me. One can hardly believe
the horrors of that place. I was able
to speak to people who had been in the
camp. A man who had worked on the ovens.
A woman violinist, who had played in
the orchestra to welcome new arrivals.
I was not aware that quite a number
of British people, including our prisoners
of war, had perished there. However
much one has read, however many pictures
one has seen, you can never be prepared
to actually see and walk around the
buildings for yourself. The atmosphere
was so heavy and there were few birds
to sing a requiem […] Heart-rending
stacks of suitcases, clothing and shoes.
Spectacles, personal belongings of every
possible description piled high. These
filled room, after room, after room.
I noticed stacks of music. A volume
of Brahms’s piano music, with the name
of the owner so carefully written on
the cover, was clearly visible […] It
was the same Breitkopf Edition that
I had at home. Possibly I had been practising
the same Brahms pieces as this unknown
Polish pianist who had endured such
a terrible fate. It has had a lasting
effect on my life […] I will always
remember it.’ [BJ]

USSR 1970

In May 1970 Joyce’s
Guildford Philharmonic performance of
Bax’s Symphonic Variations and the ensuing
EMI Abbey Road sessions were attended
by the Soviet Cultural Attaché
in London. On the basis of what he heard,
he confirmed he would recommend the
piece for inclusion on her forthcoming
tour of the Soviet Union (ipsofacto entrusting to her its Soviet
premiere).

‘The works that
I had been booked to play were Mozart’s
A major Concerto K 488, Brahms
D minor, Beethoven’s Third
(Alkan cadenza), Chopin’s F minor
and, finally, the Bax Variations.
I also took a Liszt recital and a special
[…] programme for some engagements in
universities and [conservatoires]. This
contained the Bach GoldbergVariations
and Rachmaninov’s First Piano Sonata.
In the Liszt recital, in place of the
B minor Sonata, I included the
rarely played Grand Concert Solo.
The B minor Sonata seemed particularly
popular with young Russian pianists
and featured in three of the five recitals
I was invited to attend. The Bax […]
really stunned and surprised everybody
[…] a great success.’ [BJ]

The public warmed to
her Brahms D minor, one reviewer commenting:

‘Her performance […]
was a triumph. The technical virtuosity
was compelling […] but it was the blazing
passion that brought the huge audience
to its feet. To repeat the third movement
as an encore was more than a gesture
[…] It was a challenge thrown down to
the orchestra who responded magnificently.
Joyce Hatto [is] an exceptionally fine
pianist with no fear of heights. Her
playing in the Brahms concerto was a
benchmark by which all future pianists
can be judged. [She] has a charming
grace of manner and her complete humility
to the demands of the composer sets
her aside as being special.’

Crisis

But for the fighter
in Joyce, Bax might have been her swansong.
She was 41 - and ill with cancer. She
has been ever since.

‘She went straight
from the EMI Studios to hospital for
surgery the next day. It was then found
that with a blood count just on 50 [normal
MCV being 86-98 femtoliters] any operation
was impossible. The surgeon was adamant
that she would never recover. Immediate
blood transfusions were given and a
week to regain strength. Her doctors,
one of whom was in attendance at the
Guildford concert and the London recording,
said that she was "not in a fit
state to do either". Well, she
did recover, toured Russia and Scandinavia,
and played a number of Liszt recitals.
She only finally gave up on the public
stage when a critic mocked her appearance.
Her name nonetheless remained in the
record catalogues. In 1980-90 there
were 70 cassette titles available, distributed
in Britain, the USA, South Africa, Australia,
Japan and the Eastern Bloc. When the
UK national broadsheets stopped reviewing
cassettes, it gave a rather false impression
of the business, denying Joyce her presence
as a recording artist.’ [WB-C]
‘She doesn't want to play in public
[again] because she never knows when
the pain will start, or when it will
stop, and she refuses to take drugs.
Nothing has stopped her, and I believe
the illness has added a third dimension
to her playing; she gets at what is
inside the music, what lies behind it.’
[WB-C, quoted by RD]

Scandinavia

1972, 1975

The warmth of Joyce’s
reception abroad has given her good
memories. In 1972, for the first time
in ten years, she returned to Sweden
to play Rachmaninov’s Third Concerto,
the Schumann, and an all-Schubert programme.
The Göteborgs-Posten atmospherically
caught the occasion – ‘Joyce Hatto the
astonishing English pianist’:

‘Her performance
of the Rachmaninov Third Piano Concerto
(which she played on her début
here in 1962) has not dimmed but become
even more impassioned. The alternative
"big" cadenza in the first
movement would seem an almost impossible
demand for a diminutive woman pianist.
But here, as in the thrilling finale,
[she] completely dominated her Steinway
and it was noticeable that it was the
orchestral players who were sweating,
not the soloist! The explosive reception
she received demanded six encores. These
ranged from an incredible Mephisto
Waltz to equally fine performances
of Rachmaninov’s Preludes in C minor
and G minor, ending finally with
three Scarlatti sonatas, no doubt beautifully
chosen to calm an emotionally charged
audience.’

Of her ‘brave’ Schubert
offering, they wrote:

‘Miss Hatto’s sponsors
need not have worried at this choice
of programme as the hall was more than
comfortably filled. This English pianist,
still young by international standards,
has a phenomenal technique. It is phenomenal
not simply in terms of power and the
speed of her dazzling finger work (yes
she does have all that) but in the vast
variety of different sounds she is able
to coax from her instrument. Phenomenal
too is the complete independence of
her hands. This alone enables her to
colour her playing in a way few pianists
can achieve […] all this seemingly additional
pianistic technique is placed at the
disposal of the composer. Conventional
criticisms of Schubert’s piano writing
no longer concern us and we are free
to gasp at the wonderful sound pictures
the composer, through the hands of his
interpreter, paints for us. Nowhere
was this more convincingly illustrated
than in the Wanderer Fantasy,
receiving an astonishing performance
of power and pianistic conviction.’

A pair of Schubert
sonatas in Stockholm galvanised the
critic of Svenska Dagbladet:

‘Joyce Hatto [is]
a thoughtful pianist of quite exceptional
power and an astonishing, seemingly
endless, variety of keyboard colour.
The clarity of her vision in all she
plays and the profundity of thought
that permeates her music-making set
her uniquely aside. Her individual conception
of Schubert’s Sonata in B flat major
was completely at odds with the interpretations
we hear in concert and on recordings
by an array of the world’s greatest
pianists. An expected mood of boundless
despair was replaced by a searching
performance that found hope and looked
forward to the future with more than
a glint of confidence […] In this deeply
considered performance we were held
completely in awe of the music and were
made to feel that Schubert has not given
up his struggle but is still reaching
out for fulfilment and some happiness.
Rare indeed are the pianists that can
grip, mould and hold an audience for
forty-five minutes without a single
cough to break the spell. [Miss Hatto
opened her recital] with a daringly
different view of Schubert’s "sunny"
little Sonata in A Major D 664.
In the opening Allegro moderato
(played with exposition repeat) she
made us deeply aware of the underlying
sadness that is never far away in Schubert,
and our eyes were opened to the real
stature of this piece. The final movement
was a magical journey in which the composer’s
rapid changes of mood were further illuminated
by this artist’s ability to coax so
many different sounds from her instrument.’

Teaching

‘It is really only
possible to teach well by example. If
you can’t illustrate a difficult passage
fluently yourself how can a pupil accept
advice on technique?’ [JH/Chopin]

Joyce has spent a large
part of her life teaching. Not in a
time-restricted, prescriptive college
environment but privately. On a one-to-one,
hands-on basis, the problems and strengths
of each student individually, inspirationally
addressed, helped and remedied.

‘I have always enjoyed
teaching. It is true that many musicians
do not. I have always loved the piano.
For me there is a frisson merely to
see the sight of the piano open and
standing alone on the concert platform.
Waiting for the pianist to appear, sit
down, and launch into the adventure
of a performance […] I think that most
people are born with a talent for something.
The people who are happiest in life
are those who have been able to discover,
or recognise, their own particular god-given
gift, and go all out for it! There is
that well worn and very unfair adage
that "People who can’t perform
teach". I love the piano whether
I am playing myself or teaching young
pianists how to play well or […] better.
Good teaching, [in whatever discipline]
whether it is mathematics, physics,
languages, ballet, or opera, must be
recognised as vital to the success of
our society. Inspired teaching always
produces results and who better to inspire
a young performer than advice given
freely by somebody who has been through
the mill.’ [BJ]

In the essay accompanying
her 75th anniversary edition
of the Chopin Studies she tellingly
quotes a conversation Cortot had with
her:

‘What one must always
try to do in teaching is to convince
the student that they have something
to say (if they have) and give them
confidence to expand on that. If they
can say nothing when faced with a great
work of art or find nothing meaningful
of themselves to weave into their playing,
then I advise them to take up cartography,
geography, swimming or anything else
where they can do no harm. I never ever
advise them to take up teaching as an
alternative to public performance. What
can they teach for God’s sake!’
[JH/Chopin]

Seeking out Joyce’s
students has never been easy. (Gail
Buckingham made a brief name for herself
in the late-60s, sailing the Niobe
Fantasy among other things, but then
vanished.) Possibly because many, like
Chopin’s, were not destined for a life
in music. One such grateful soul, circa
1955, was the novelist Rose Tremain,
whose spent her boarding-school days
at Crofton Grange in Hertfordshire –
and still keeps in touch:

‘Crofton Grange
was hard at first. I was homesick. [But]
life got easier and then I began to
like it. There was a lot of time to
fill up and we filled it up stupendously
well, with art and drama and music […]
I longed to be a good pianist, because
we had the concert pianist, Joyce Hatto,
to teach us and the sound she made on
the wonky old Crofton grand was unique
in the history of the school. I never
got beyond Grade 3, despite her brilliant
instruction. My fingers wouldn’t do
the fast bits, so I had to play very
slow sonatas.’ (The Scotsman,
10 December 2003)

Technique

Among Joyce’s favourite
maxims is Arthur Rubinstein’s ‘there
is no method – there is only the right
way’. Over lunch in Cambridge, at the
University Arms, Valentine’s Day 2005,
discussing facets of piano technique,
she enumerated some of her basic principles
and understandings.

‘(1) The mind plays
the piano.

(2) The mind tells
the fingers what to do before they do
it.

(3) The mind instructs
the whole arm to be totally relaxed
all the time.

(4) Everything travels
through the whole arm dictated by the
mind. One doesn’t have to be concerned
with ‘arm weight’, ‘wrist tension’ or
such things. It is all completely irrelevant
and will simply get in the way.

(5) Pianists move quicker
than they play. The articulation is
dictated by the mind and the fingers
are always close to the keys. Krystian
Zimerman and Evgeny Kissin demonstrate
this.

In this way of playing
all sound is released out of the instrument,
and the mind chooses its repertory of
sounds.

(6) The pianist sits
low and away from the keyboard so that
the elbow is lower than the keyboard.

(7) The hand is
not ‘prepared’ in anyway but remains
outstretched. The thumb is always away
from the fingers, which can then be
articulate. There is no such thing as
a weak finger.[‘It is the tendons that are
strengthened not the "fingers"
as such. The tip of the finger to the
first knuckle doesn't cave in’ (WB-C)]

(8) If applied successfully
and the hand is lifted off, by the other
arm, it will be as light as a feather
[a simple demonstration proves the
point – as well as showing remarkable
tendon development.

(9) The sound is caught
by the cushion pads on each finger as
the weight travels down the arm.

(10) Legato is transferring
the weight from one finger to another.
This needs slow practise at first to
connect the relaxation from one finger
to another. The thumb is used as another
finger and this achieves a pure legato.

(11) The lazier
[more relaxed] the arm the bigger
the tone coming through the instrument.’
[AO]

Arrau once told me
he never bothered with drill practice:
the works he played gave him the material
he needed to keep in shape. Joyce goes
along with that to an extent. But the
regular playing of technical/musical
studies is still an important routine.
As a child living through the Blitz
near a munitions factory, she honed
her fingers on Cortot’s 1928 Rational
Principles of Piano Technique. Did
an hour of Bach. Immersed herself in
Liszt. And wandered the highways of
Chopin-Godowsky, courtesy of Krish.
She still lives with Clementi’s Gradus
ad Parnassum. ‘When discussing the
Paganini Études with Joyce
Hatto at a Liszt Society recital,’ Humphrey
Searle noted in 1952, ‘I was interested,
but not entirely surprised, to learn
from her that she regularly uses a number
of the [late] Liszt Technical Studies,
combined with Clementi’s Gradus ad
Parnassum, as a basis to build and
maintain her very formidable technical
prowess.’ [HS]

Urgeist versus
Urtext

Joyce is more interested
in Urgeist than Urtext.
Spirit before letter. Composer before
editor.

‘I always mistrust
Urtext editions as they are never
exactly what they proclaim. Mozart and
Chopin always seem to attract ‘scholarship’
of a kind that can never accept that
they might actually have meant what
they put down on paper. Any deviation
from notation in a first movement repeat
or in a reprise is immediately put down
to a composer having simply been tired,
forgetful, ignorant or perverse. Over
the years Chopin has suffered badly
from editors who think that their understanding
of harmony is to be more trusted. They
water down piquant harmonies or discords
to fit in with their own lesser flights
of fancy. This has happened in some
Chopin Urtext Editions when even
the composer's own corrections of the
original plate-makers’ engravings have
gone "uncorrected". Existing
copies of first editions used by the
composer's pupils and assiduously corrected
by him, pointing to occasionally quite
different conclusions [alternatives],
are also often ignored, despite their
accessibility [see Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger,
Chopin: Pianist and Teacher,
Cambridge: 1986].’ [AO]

From a generation in
a country, England, that came late to
the Germanic Urtext mentality
– well-thumbed 19th century
derived or influenced editions of the
classics still outnumber Henle/Bärenreiter/Wiener
Urtext ‘purifications’ in the
main British music colleges – Joyce
has no ethical problem using the 1906
Augener text of Mozart’s sonatas edited
by Franklin Taylor, one of Clara Schumann’s
pupils. But only as a basic notation
reference, open to academic scrutiny.
Occasionally, she says, she’ll make
‘changes in those instances where Mozart
is known to have changed his mind or
had second thoughts’. In the slow movement
of the F major Sonata K 332, for example,
she opts to play the ornamented second
half variant of the first edition (1784)
on the grounds that (a) ‘though its
authenticity [cannot] be proved, it
seems not impossible that Mozart is
[the] author’ (Salzburg Mozarteum-Ausgabe,
Vienna: 1950); and (b) it ‘rings true’
(Frederick Neumann, Ornamentation
and Improvisation in Mozart, Princeton:
1986). She points out, with respect
to dynamics, that she will accord or
not with an editor’s opinion subject
to her own perception of a passage or
context. ‘Mozart himself employed very
few expression marks, for the most part
f and p.
These signs were to indicate the general
character of a phrase, and not to imply
a monotonouscontinuance
of the same degree of force or sound.’

In the case of Mussorgsky’s
Pictures at an Exhibition, getting
to the Urgeist of the music was
through Paul Lamm’s edition (Moscow:
1931, basis of the International Music
Company text, New York: 1952 – explaining,
for instance, the fortissimo
at the start of Bydlo, and the
original C-D flat-B flat ending of ‘Samuel’
Goldenberg und ‘Schmuÿle’.
The autograph (facsimile, Moscow:1975/82).
And first-hand contact with London’s
‘White Russian’ Romantics – the Krish
circle.

‘When I first played
Pictures to Moiseiwitsch he told
me quite casually that Rachmaninov had
considered producing a "performing
edition" but had given up on the
task feeling that it was better to leave
well alone. Rachmaninov, however, did
pass on some of his ideas to Medtner
who allowed me to copy them into my
own copy of the music. I am not aware
that Rachmaninov actually performed
the piece, but I do know that he intended
to play it in a Boston recital before
abandoning the possibility. In my recording
[CACD 9129-2] I incorporate one
or two of the thoughts he communicated
to Medtner. I do not entertain any harmonic
changes. But I do divide up some chords
for the sake of harmonic emphasis. I
endeavour to play each of the Promenades
slightly differently so as to make for
a more thoughtful (or thought about)
performance. I have no specific "authority"
for this – though Cortot (who suggested
I should play the piece originally)
did pass on some splendid personal comments
and advice. The difficulty in playing
Pictures is to make a diffuse
piece, albeit a very great one, that
little bit more cohesive, without
sprawling about in one’s own unbridled
emotions.’ [AO]

Reception

Finding out anything
about Joyce, anything corroborative,
is a challenge. Her lack of vanity,
self-effacement, and desire to be behind
the composer, the music, the CD, to
be the medium rather than the personality,
has over the years created an effective
information block. Odd programmes and
advertisements surface from time to
time. And there’s the standard management
biography. But otherwise one hunts vainly
for information. No dictionary or handbook
entries. Virtually no third-party references.
Few readily accessible reviews from
her concert days (she’s never kept press
cuttings). Her Concert Artist CDs however,
offering an in-depth picture of her
(present day) strengths and breadth,
have helped redress the balance somewhat,
attracting notice in Europe and America.
The first major piece about her appeared
on the internet: the 1973 Burnett James
interview. An intriguing read – too
intriguing to have been withheld for
thirty years. A German profile then
featured in Fono Forum, an admiring
Frank Siebert concluding that ‘the piano
art of Joyce Hatto stands in contrast
to today's ostentatious music business’.
Subsequently Richard Dyer took up the
story, calling her ‘a hidden jewel’.
‘Joyce Hatto must be the greatest living
pianist that almost no one has ever
heard of […] The best of [her CDs] document
the art of a major musician’ (Boston
Globe, 21 August 2005).

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